From Stealing Hearts and Desires to Sainthood

In this world where practicality reigns supreme, the rigid hierarchy is so inflexible that the author seems to have sacrificed logic for the sake of creating a sense of exhilaration. New talents emerge in every generation, each dominating for centuries. In a world where power resides in one person, ambitious individuals won't be limited by their birth; instead, they'll seek to break free.

The cross-dressing trope is so cliché. I can accept the other minor flaws, but this is a major one. A perfectly good brotherly relationship turns into a romantic one. How can even a dog become part of the harem just because it's nice to the protagonist?

Could someone explain the world's setting? So far, I've only seen a 90% tax on commerce (butchers collect meat). Are there any grain taxes, poll taxes, land taxes, or shop tax rates later on? It feels like with this social system, it's practically impossible for anyone to survive; if you weren't born an official, you'd starve.

This is outrageous! Ordinary people are treated like dirt, reduced to lowly status. This dynasty hasn't even been overthrown yet, and it's already absurd. Even if it hadn't been overthrown, there should be constant uprisings and endless war.

I didn't read the book; all I knew was that if you're going to starve, you have to fight back. So what if it's a supernatural world? Would you choose to starve to death or be beaten to death if you couldn't afford food? And since it's a supernatural world, there must be unorthodox methods that ordinary people can access.

The further I read, the stranger it felt. The power system was unclear, and it felt like the story always stopped halfway through. The new villain, Zhang Ruozhi, who was introduced, was just a seventh-rank noble family, the local county magistrate, and his family was a sixth-rank family. Yet he was so arrogant despite being only a seventh-rank, and there was no explanation of how high his talent was. The more I read, the stranger it became.

It's illogical for such a world to exist. How could ordinary people survive in such a world? How could a nation become powerful? In an era of cold weapons, ordinary people would represent 80-90% of the total population. If ordinary people had no way to survive, how could a nation become strong? Don't tell me a nation can thrive with just a few figureheads.

The further you read, the more strange a sense of disconnect arises.

It's unreasonable for a mid-level sect to be so arrogant. The Grand Commander is a key figure in the border army, arguably one of the most powerful in the court. Moreover, a family that can reach this position must be a first or second-rank aristocratic family. After all, the world still belongs to the imperial court.

Your rank system is making me dizzy. Please list out a rank system.